I say logically nothing can not exist by itself like black can not exist without white. I’m saying nothing and everything is one thing with two sides. — Zelebg

Am still for an idea something like yours above.

An eternal everything that can't come from anything seems rather similar to amounting from/to nothing.

I hope my point with the antimonkey was clear at least to someone.

Monkey and anti-monkey cancel each other in chaotic arrangement before they can manage to materialize. Something materializes only through windows of harmony which supposedly are small in totally chaotic system or things disintegrate into particles for some other reason.

Harmony in chaos of everything means separation or organisation between things and anti-things. Separation weakens cancelation which reveals the underside of nothing with a tiny hole, or two, through which pours two streams, matter on one side and antimatter on another. This reminds of those giant black holes in the center of galaxies.

We have established separately that there is a start of time. The start of time requires a cause. An uncaused cause. Quantum fields I feel are part of spacetime and so I doubt they can preexist spacetime (there is no time/space for them to fluctuate in). — Devans99

In theory, spacetime CONSISTS of quantum fields. Collectively, these comprise a quantum system. In this context, a quantum fluctuation is not a temporal event. The initial quantum state is zero-point energy; a quantum state is a superposition of all possible eigenstates, each with an energy value of (zero + a value associated with the uncertainty principle).

An eigenstate with high energy/low entropry will necessarily inflate, either collapsing the quantum system to this state, or (if Many-Worlds interpretation is true) - in a world that branches off the initial superpositioned quantum state.. The "cause" of this inflation is the high energy of that eigenstate; the existence of that high energy eigenstate is just a consequence of the quantum uncertainty of a zero point energy system - the quantum system as a whole has "zero" energy. Therefore nothing external needs to cause it to inflate.

A start of time needs a cause from from beyond spacetime. — Devans99

"Spacetime" may not be the right label to apply to the initial state I described, but it is clearly doesn't require anything external to inflate and become what we call a universe (spacetime). The "cause" is its high energy, and the initial high energy is a consequence of the quantum uncertainty of a zero point energy.

Or there could be black holes birth universes elsewhere. There are a lot of options on the table in current cosmology. They don't know. I don't think we should pretend we know what we can rule out, what must be the case, etc.

Space and time would either refer to facets of stuff OR facets of experiencing. So, they are not stuff, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

Or there could be black holes birth universes elsewhere. There are a lot of options on the table in current cosmology. — Coben

Not even light can escape a black hole, so they should not be able to give birth to universes.

I do not believe quantum fluctuations can give birth to a whole dimension (time). If what you describe happened naturally, then there would be many instances of it (inflation). There is but one instance of inflation so it is not a naturally occurring event.

Not even light can escape a black hole, so they should not be able to give birth to universes. — Devans99

tell it to the cosmologists. Us lay people sitting around speculating deductively AND ruling things out is, I think, hubris.

I do not believe quantum fluctuations can give birth to a whole dimension (time). — Devans99

The potential for time would have to have been present in the initial state.

If what you describe happened naturally, then there would be many instances of it (inflation).
There is but one instance of inflation so it is not a naturally occurring event.

That does not follow, but if it's true - those other instances of inflation would not be detectable to us because they would be causally disconnected.

As I expected, you're coming up with assumptions that dismiss the non-preferred alternative. It's futile to try and show that God's non-existence is impossible, and many philosopher's of religion would agree with this. You'd be better off just striving to show that your belief is rational - I acknowledge that it MIGHT be, but it is NOT rational if if depends on proving the unprovable, as you're trying to do.

That does not follow, but if it's true - those other instances of inflation would not be detectable to us because they would be causally disconnected. — Relativist

I do not believe they would be causally disconnected; they would be overlapping in time and space and there would be evidence of multiple instances of inflation.

You'd be better off just striving to show that your belief is rational - I acknowledge that it MIGHT be, but it is NOT rational if if depends on proving the unprovable, as you're trying to do. — Relativist

I acknowledge that it is not possible to outright prove the existence of God. I do however think that God's existence is probable and I argue for the things I think are probable.

tell it to the cosmologists. Us lay people sitting around speculating deductively AND ruling things out is, I think, hubris. — Coben

Everyone has a right to an opinion just as much as cosmologists do. Many cosmologists think time has no start so clearly there is a considerable number of them that do not know their arses from their elbows on even basic matters. And speculating deductively is surely what this site is about?

That does not follow, but if it's true - those other instances of inflation would not be detectable to us because they would be causally disconnected.
— Relativist

I do not believe they would be causally disconnected; they would be overlapping in time and space and there would be evidence of multiple instances of inflation. — Devans99

That's another big, convenient assumption. Why assume they should be causally connected (which just means they are detectable)? The fact that others have not been detected could mean there's just the one, or it could mean they are merely causally disconnected. You eliminate possibility #2 by assumption, and that's irrational - there's no basis for this, and so it simply sounds convenient.

I'll also add that even if there is but one inflationary landscape, that doesn't preclude the scenario I gave of inflation occurring from a high energy eigenstate, which results in the quantum collapse of the other eigenstates.

0 = x - x It really means superposition of everything is equal to nothing, — Zelebg

I don't follow that. How can you be sure that for every X there is exactly and precisely a -X? This is a statement verifiable only by empirical study. And no such study exists.

On the other hand: x - x does not mean "you have x, you have its negation, and the two cancel out each other." The original meaning of the minus sign is "take away", and it is not "negate" or "create the diametrically opposite." X take away X means that you have an X, and you then take it away, meaning putting it somewhere else. This is simple.

That's another big, convenient assumption. Why assume they should be causally connected (which just means they are detectable)? The fact that others have not been detected could mean there's just the one, or it could mean they are merely causally disconnected. You eliminate possibility #2 by assumption, and that's irrational - there's no basis for this, and so it simply sounds convenient. — Relativist

If inflation was a natural event then it should occur with the frequency of a natural event (eg supernovas). Each instance of inflation expands outwards so it would be like the expanding rings rain drops make on the surface of a pond - all of the instances overlap in space leaving evidence of each other detectable.

Inflation strikes me as quite a 'tall tail': it has the universe increase in size by a factor of at least 10^26 between 10^−36 seconds and 10^-33 seconds after the Big Bang. I know that the CMB shows good agreement with inflation's predictions but I still think it should be regarded as a speculative theory. I believe firmly in the Big Bang - an expanding universe is the only possible sort that avoids equilibrium - but the details of what exactly happened 14 billion years ago are opaque to humans.

It's just confused.

If I have a million dollars in the bank, and yet I also owe a million dollars, I do not have nothing. I have a million dollars in cash and a million dollars in debt.

If I use some of the million to buy a Ferrari, I have not bought it with 'nothing' have I?

Everyone has a right to an opinion just as much as cosmologists do. Many cosmologists think time has no start so clearly there is a considerable number of them that do not know their arses from their elbows on even basic matters. And speculating deductively is surely what this site is about? — Devans99

Sure, as long as people know they are speculating. I said nothing about you shouldn't have had an opinion or expressed it here.

If I go back to where I came in...

The universe can only have one of the following as its average long term behaviour:

1. Expanding. This is what science says.
2. Contracting. Impossible. One big black hole
3. Steady state. Impossible. Leads to 2
4. Cycling. Impossible. Loses energy on each cycle, leading to 3 then 2

Any expanding universe must have a start in space and time (see BGV theory). — Devans99

which was a response to my response to....

↪Coben

Lawrence Krauss wrote a book 'demonstrating' how something can come from nothing. — Zelebg

I see statements of certainty.

And I guess if I was ruling something out via deduction, I would wonder why many of the experts in the field are not ruling it out. I could of course be right and they, wrong. But I would wonder why the experts do not rule out what I rule out and try to explain why they are off base. What they are missing. Deduction's accuracy is affected by assumptions, including metaphysical ones.